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Today Microsoft is signing off on beta 1 of
Windows Vista. There's a big party on campus and all that. Betas will soon be available for MSDN Universal, Enterprise, Professional, and Operating System Subscribers.

As usual, we (Robert Scoble and Jeff Sandquist did the interview) wanted to get the straight scoop so we went to Chris Jones, who is a corporate vice president tasked with building and shipping a high quality Windows Vista product. He tells us what's in beta
1 and what to expect at the PDC.

We had a little fun with Chris and made him put a quarter on the table everytime he said the word "Longhorn."

He explains the build process for Windows Vista and gives us a demo at about 11 minutes into the interview.

Was it just me or did he just reveal there isgoing to be a home and a pro version?

Two things, no.1 I got from what he said that it will no longer do "dumb searching" which is a *must have* as a developer. I want to search a *.dat; a *.bmp file for strings when I do a search. It requires a frigging registry hack in XP to get it working.

Secondly did anyone else notice how long it took his files to appear after the window did?

Where, as a user, can I disable this automatic error reporting? Can I?

At 00:21:15 Did I just hear that right?WinFX is not installed in Windows Vista by default?

Oh its "On the disk, so you can install it if you want", .Net 1.1 was "on the disk" for XP SP2, but it didn't really help the roll out of the framework to the general population.

So you want to deploy one of those nice "(Avalon) Express applications", a single click on a web link and it is supposed to download and launch within the browser frame, but wait, "Additional componants required, Please locate your Windows Vista install media"

Hardly a great user experiance.

So .Net is IN Vista, but Avalon and Indigo are only optional installs?

So the is a Vista Tablet PC edition, but how will it be delivered. At the moment Tablet is restricted to OEMs and MSDN(not for production use).

If Vista Tablet is restricted the same way it means you will NOT be able to buy an upgrade to Vista for an existing TabletPC. Not very supportive of the existing user base.

It definitely sounds like the Tablet features, TIP, Recognisers etc are not going to be included in every Vista version, and are still restricted to Tablets only. I didn't really expect them to be included considering the OEM price of Tablet is well above that
of standard XP.

What I do hope is that there is at least support for inputting and editing INK on non-tablets, maybe the equivelent of having the Tablet SDK installed by default. Or will that come through WinFX as well?

Where did you hear that? WinFX and .NET, Chris said, were included in Windows Vista. Where did you get that?

At 21 minutes and 10-30 seconds into the video.

Cos there was a lot of confusion on the blog..

The the Whidbey version of the .Net framework is in Windows Vista, it's out there. And WinFX comes along with Windows Vista, its on the disk, people can install it if they want to install it and use it, so it will be around with every copy. And, the nice
thing about both Whidbey and WinFX is they are available downlevel for Windows XP. So...

Hi, I from Argentine and....I´m a IT Pro here but I´cant access to a MSDN Suscriber by the high cost of it and I want access to Beta 1 for download like all you. I logged in at
http://connect.microsoft.com but there isn´t any beta program.

Great video - although for a minute when Chris Jones was talking about VBLs, I thought he meant Vista had been secretly done in Visual Basic.NET. Now that's a scary thought! (I'm a VB.NET fan, but it's not for OSs). Fortunately I got my brain into gear
a few seconds later!

I have a few questions:1. I read a while ago that the whole searching thing behind Vista was going to be available for download to XP, but I think that someone got confused between WinFS and WinFX (which is the whole top level API thing Chris was talking about). Is this true? Did
someone mis-read and decided to tell the world before sourcing it properly?

2. What is Whidbey? I've not heard of it, personally and was just wondering if someone could clear it up for me.

What I do hope is that there is at least support for inputting and editing INK on non-tablets, maybe the equivelent of having the Tablet SDK installed by default. Or will that come through WinFX as well?

Was just looking around at the MSDN Windows Vista website and saw the following:

Windows Vista includes many advances for Tablet PC developers. Chief among these are Ink Analysis and integration with the Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly code name "Avalon". Probably the biggest advance, however, is the ubiquity of Tablet
PC features. To date, developers have had a difficult time with the Tablet PC technology redistribution problem. With Windows Vista, however,
Tablet PC technologies are ubiquitous across all Windows Vista editions.

Windows Vista is the client OS. I just talked with Iain McDonald and he says that the next server version will be Server 2007. They are still arguing over the name. But, there'll be a server version out a little while after Windows Vista client ships.

After that? Who knows? Too far out. Let's get Windows Vista out the door before we start speculating on Blackcomb or whatever else will come after that.

scoble what type of home system and office computer system you running.

and also could you tell me is the start menu and all menus related to task var and windows in start menu and right clik menus run throught he graphics card as well or are they the only things still CPU run

I am interested in the new Network stack. What is new besides IP6 (I thought 2003 had IP6 already?). Is it WinSock3? Does it have more or better socket support? Is the .Net support better? Async model changed? Threading model? Is there a link to
the detailed changes/additions? Thanks much!

In my experience, people always blow the specifications needed for an application out of proportion. This is definately seen with games. For example, people thought that Doom 3 would never run well unless you have a GeForce 6800 and 2GB of RAM, and even
then you couldn't play it at max settings. It turns out that it runs on high settings very well with a Radeon 9700 Pro. I can run it on Ultra settings with 4x AA and all the eye candy enabled at 1024x768 with a GeForce 6800GT and 1GB of RAM. My point is that
there's no need to worry about an OS running on a P4 2.4GHz or a Radeon 9800. I can see some having trouble with an unoptimized beta, but the RTM version I just can't see someone needing to buy a GeForce 6 or ATi X800 series card just to run Windows and see
the Avalon display engine in action. Chances are that any DirectX 9.0-compliant card (Radeon 9500 and above; GeForce FX 5200 and above) will do fine.

c9... can u guys get a interview with the team in charge of the new winsock... in the groups (thehive and on other sites i talk to techs) theres alot of confusion over the new tcp stack and winsock....

there was discussion previously of rewrites of the new tcp stack so that it wouldnt do the cutting packets in half every failure and stuff like that to take better advantage of broadband connections but after a slight mention of it atleast a year ago no real
communication has been done with the winsock team... i'd really like to see a light meeting with whoevers incharge of the winsock development.... i mean you did kernel and now vista general why not winsock?

We already have an interview setup with the folks who are working on the new networking stack.

Most of the work was done to natively support IPv6.

What questions do you have for the team?

Scoble, does this include Network Location Awareness? I've been trying to get some new information for some time, but haven't been successful. I even emailed John Stewart on the NLA team last week, but haven't received any form of response. Not sure if he's
on vacation, busy, or not employed with Microsoft anymore.

(seeing how I might waste my reply as he did ... here's something useful)

Robert, now that beta1 is out - can you try to (I know its a big task) run a series of interviews again with the Avalon/Indigo team, kernel and memory management teams? Go over some of the changes they did in
Longhorn Windows Vista?

Also, just to ask the question again (asked few replies earlier) - is Avalon/WinFX and .NET integrated in the build or available as a separate installer? (beta 1 build I mean)

(my installation is still going on... it will be a big night, I'd have to install Whidbey afterwards)

It might now be up but I can't find any news groups to ask questions on Vista, the only ones are hardware related on the MS site, does anyone know if there is going to, for example, a Vista Genral Newsgroup?

I believe that if Microsoft let us to access to the beta program of Vista early, we can test the OS and it´s better for MS to have more feedback. How much people test it, the OS will be more sure. There are a big community of developer and IT Pros that
can test it before than the home user ship it.

Scobleizer can you lead a project to create a Betaplace community on Channel9 Site???.

Ok i guess what i want to know is did they get to go through with the optimizations to improve overall throughput? I remember there was talk of Intellectual property issues that might have stopped them from doing it but what has been done to improve performance
over the winsock / tcp stacks?

This standard user thing is not going to work. Most users today simply don't understand the importance of PC security. People are not going to know about the difference between an administrator account and standard account. If all Vista user accounts are
admin by default, most people will never know to change that.

Furthermore, the average user will just blindly input their password anytime they're prompted and end up installing who knows what on their systems. I hope this isn't Vista's only defense against spyware—Microsoft needs to make a lot of under the hood changes
to prevent spyware from overtaking a system in the first place.

LUA won't stop users from infecting themselves with spyware. But it will make sure they don't infect other users. So Mom will get much less spyware by giving Junior a limited-user account. (And vice versa.)

vbl stands for virtual build lab. we have central build lab && a set of second level labs (usually org based) that do a put all the changes that have happened for a period of time in at one go. it allows us to keep the core build super solid, && have teams
work off by themselves without the rest of the world hosing them. originally we would only have 1 level of vbls below core. now we have multiple levels of vbls. reverse integrating is the term we use for putting stuff from the vbl into the main lab.

we didn't know about the vista name back in 1999 when this was created. we still had neptune & odessey as separate projects - some idiot went off to create whistler && blackcomb as project names. longhorn came out of that...

I've been thinking about what's gonna happen when this product finally ships and I'm wondering whether or not Vista will be released on DVD? It would be much handier than CDs.

PLUS: Even with all the best HELP documents in the world, a free instructional DVD would go a long way towards teaching the general public how to use the full power of their OS and have them realize that computers aren't "magic" but just another dumb machine
that need to be taken care of.

The problem with being the most popular OS in the world is that you end up having the largest number of totally clueless users in the world and they're the people who mess up everything. I know companies don't want to ever tell their customers "it's your own
fault you mess up your computer" but by having a DVD to teach people who to use their shiny new OS responsible/creatively/efficiently it would help out people like me who have to always run to their rescue when something goes wrong.

I'd love to watch this, but I'm on a PowerBook. Will this work on WMP9? Or is this encoded with WMV3? Also, how about encoding in a format that everyone can use or, I don't know, have your software support your own (I need to watch my language)ing file
formats?

I dont think you need a very fast computer at all to run this. Vista is running better for me than XP ever did.I can actually have adobe photoshop cs 2 open, and it will not lag down all my other applications or my desktop.

I have penitum 4 2.6ghz with 384ddr ram. So my pC isnt the fastest and Vista runs nice and smooth on it.

I think alot of people will find this OS incredible. Especially how much better its going to be in its final release.

Scoble, why have you never done a video on the graphic design team at Microsoft? I know that you obviously couldnt show any conceptual designs for any new user interfaces, such as vista itself, but if you think about it, it's these guys that are actually
helping reshape the future. I remember watching a video on winsupersite from i think it was pdc 2003 which showed some concepts from Vista and thought that they looked so amazing. Now its pretty well known that Microsoft have something up their sleeves which
we may see in beta 2, or rc1 or may not even see until the final release next year. I'd like to know more about these guys that are working on this amazingly new UI, and hear them talk about the work that they've done and what is ahead. Id like to know more
about the team, and hear them talk about the things they have designed in the past. ie, Media player 10, media center, why the ui change in office 2003 etc and where the hell did they get that longhorn grass from??! id just like to hear them talk about things,
like how different is it to work with avalon and so on and on..

They obviously knew about the vista name before many of the main vista development team because they had to come up with the vista motion videos and graphics in advance.

Im not being critical of your work, infact, i cant get enough of it! but you have to admit, most of the videos we see are from the 'development' side of microsoft. Its always good to see what else goes on at microsoft. i loved the video you did of the recruitment
process for instance. I cant think of a better video than one of the Graphic design team.

I dont think you need a very fast computer at all to run this. Vista is running better for me than XP ever did.I can actually have adobe photoshop cs 2 open, and it will not lag down all my other applications or my desktop.

I have penitum 4 2.6ghz with 384ddr ram. So my pC isnt the fastest and Vista runs nice and smooth on it.

I think alot of people will find this OS incredible. Especially how much better its going to be in its final release.

Same here. The PC I installed Vista on doesn't even meet the minimum requirements, and it still runs way better than I expected. It seems to even access the HDD less than XP does, and most of the applications run smoothly.

I had to install Seti@Home and run that in the background, to keep the CPU at 100%, so I could use the system at all. With Seti running its really smooth and snappy, it seems faster than XP and downloads go much faster.

As soon as the processor drops below 100% its back to being all jerky again. When its jerky the system clock also runs too slowly. When watching the control panel clock applet, it ticks about once every 7 seconds.

Must be a problem with the chipset driver I think. Something low level anyway.

I think that name is terrible! I agree that is important that MS shift away from numbers and letters (98,2000,ME,XP) and towards a friendly marketable name (ala Tiger). I just don't know that "Vista" will resonate well with consumers.

Anyone else think they would have been better off shipping "Longhorn" as Longhorn?

Thanks for the screenshots...but I am struggling with one main design question...why are the title bars transparent? Other than to make the window take on a more "glassy" look? It seems like it is now
more difficult to read the information in that part of the window. I'm also struggling with the fact when I look at numerous screen shots it takes me several seconds to figure out what every little link/breadcrumb/button is for...it seems like a step
backward in terms of intuitiveness. I know, it's only "developer beta" but this trend seems strange. Maybe it is something a user gets use to, who knows.

Dialog boxes, maximized windows and certain other windows don't have the titlebar transparent. I believe that with a transparent titlebar you can focus more on the what's in the window, disregarding the titlebar (which you rarely look at).

Also, they added an interesting blur effect so that the text in the titlebar can be readable.

First I was a bit confused with Virtual Folders, then I got used to them. It shouldn't take long for the typical Windows XP user to accommodate to Vista. The basic operations like simply browsing for a file and other routine tasks are still similar to the
previous Windows operating systems.

One of the graphic effects I like most on Vista is when you hover over the minimize, maximize/restore and close buttons in the titlebar. I updated the page and added screenshots with this effect.

No wonder. There are lots of Linux zealots and other Microsoft haters that hunt these reviews and hijack them with comments and bad ratings. You can see them everywhere, here, on Robert's blog, on MSDN, on Neowin, and so on. They have nothing better to
do between kernel version updates.

No wonder. There are lots of Linux zealots and other Microsoft haters that hunt these reviews and hijack them with comments and bad ratings. You can see them everywhere, here, on Robert's blog, on MSDN, on Neowin, and so on. They have nothing better to
do between kernel version updates.

It has nothing to do with Linux zealots or MS haters, Its a review by CNet and users who like/dislike MS/Apple/Linux comment on this.These reviews are an eye opener taking user inputs and making the OS better is a good thing, see things in a broader view and not as criticizing then things will better. Probably you didn't have anything to do other than reading the review and commenting like
this.

"Bow down Microsoft give in to anyone with a little cash(IMHO). Really; I am glad that there are GOOD alternatives out there, IE Linux, BSD, and even the Mac. Take back your computer and enjoy feeling the freedom and empowerment that comes from using
an alternative OS. Try Linux, it is always free, free of cost and free of viruses, spyware, tcpa, and drm. Also most every program you could want, good programs can be downloaded and used for free. Try www.PCLinuxOS.com, or www.ubuntu.org, or www.mepis.com"

"Microsoft is going to catch up to Apples current technology and features... in over 1 year. By then Mac OS X and Linux will be years & years ahead. Again. "

Yes, that was really enlightening. I am quite curious to find out how you find these and 70% other similar reviews, "eye opener".

Also, no one sane enough rates an operating system lower than 4. I don't think there's any operating system deserving less than 4 out of 10. Most of the reviewers on CNET rated Vista 1, 2 or 3. Not to mention reviews such as "I can create Windows Vista
at home using skins", reviews which clearly come from someone who only judges by seeing a couple of screenshots.

And when Apple launched Tiger, why weren't there any Microsoft zealots posting reviews such as the ones I see now on CNET: "Who needs it? I wonder, who needs it. It is not going to make my customers pay their bills faster, it will not make them accept
higher prices...". With this kind of perspectives you'll not be going far my friend.

I'm convinced now. No matter what Microsoft is going to do, biased reviews will always exist. And there will always be someone to hijack forums and blogs with their unconstructive, obsesively repeating comments. Microsoft enthusiasts don't join Linux or
Mac forums talking about how great Windows is. If Linux or Mac was that great, it would have the OS market by now. The same way Ford lost in front of Toyota on the US market recently.

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